A Washougal man was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison last week for child sex-abuse crimes in a case prosecutors and investigators say is the worst they’ve ever seen.
The unusually lengthy sentence came after a jury in February convicted Stephen Rian Price, 30, of 17 counts of sex abuse for raping two infants, one of whom was his then-10-month-old daughter, and posting recordings of the abuse to the internet.
“This was the most hideous case I’ve ever seen,” said Laurel Smith, a Clark County senior deputy prosecuting attorney. “It was heartbreaking on every level.”
Smith, who supervises the prosecuting attorney’s office’s sex-crimes unit, said she’s only seen such long prison sentences in statutorily mandated life-sentences for aggravated-murder.
This case was so heinous, Smith said, that she felt physically ill while presenting evidence to jurors.
In Oct. 2019, police arrested Price after they received cyber tips about child-pornography videos and messages posted on the social-media app and website Discord that were connected to his IP address. Price later admitted to police that he had sexually assaulted his daughter multiple times and recorded it.
Price was living with the girl’s mother, Tori Lynn Carter, at a Vancouver motel at the time.
Between 2012 and 2016, Price and Carter’s parental rights were terminated for four other children, each of whom was removed from their care before reaching two months old. Court documents don’t reveal exactly why the children were taken away but indicate issues with Carter’s mental health. Price had not been previously prosecuted for sex abuse.
Price’s sixth – and most recent – child, with whom Carter was pregnant when police arrested Price, was born with fetal-alcohol syndrome, court documents reveal.
In 2018, Price and Carter kept the birth of their infant daughter – one of the victims in the case for which Price was just sentenced – a secret so Child Protective Services wouldn’t take her away, Price said in a police interview.
All of Price and Carter’s children now have been adopted by people not related to the birth parents, live out of state and their names have been changed.
Julie Ballou, a Vancouver Police sergeant who heads the department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, said no one on the internet-crimes team has ever witnessed the “repeated type of abuse Price inflicted on his victims.” She said she’s never had another case that produced a 100-year sentence.
The second victim identified in the case was the infant child of a friend, who Price was alone with for less than 15 minutes while the child’s mother was outside smoking a cigarette, court documents show.
In 2020, while awaiting trial and held on $1 million bail, Price wrote to the court requesting to be released so he could admit himself to a psychiatric hospital “for a few years.”
In another letter to the judge, he claimed to have multiple mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety.
Price wrote that one of his “alter” personalities – an eight-year-old boy named Sebastian – actually committed the crimes while he, Price, was “blacked out.” “Sebastian” was the one who confessed to police, Price wrote. Price also wrote a letter to the judge from the perspective of “Sebastian.”
He wrote, “I do not feel like I should be punished for something I didn’t actually do.”
He also claimed that as a child he’d been sexually abused by stepbrothers and a babysitter.
Price was evaluated by a state-provided psychiatrist, which determined he was competent enough for trial. A judge reviewed the report and decided Price understood the charges and was able to assist in his defense, which was led by Vancouver attorney Katie Kauffman.
In interviews conducted for the investigation, Price said his mother was addicted to methamphetamine and they lived in homeless shelters at times. He said he was expelled from a Vancouver middle school for punching a teacher’s aide, dropped out of high school in 9th grade and later got his GED. As an adult, he was frequently unemployed and homeless.
Price is also facing federal charges – which would carry a likely sentence of 15 to 20 more years in prison – for producing and distributing the child pornography via Discord and Skype, court documents show.
The sentence Judge Jennifer K. Snider handed down was calculated by the maximum punishment allowed by law, multiplied by each count and victim, resulting in 1,306 months in prison, or 108 years. Price would be eligible for parole consideration only after serving the full term – meaning he will die in prison.
“The only way we can ensure protection of innocent children from Price is to take him out of society,” Smith wrote.
The 17 convictions include five counts of first-degree rape of a child, one count of first-degree child molestation, three counts of first-degree dealing in depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct and four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.
In this case, the defendant was beyond rehabilitation, Smith said.
Price’s crimes have proved far-reaching. In a recent child pornography case, a Boston pharmacist was convicted in a Massachusetts court after an investigation revealed he was in contact with Price and arranged to fly to Washington state to sexually abuse the infant.
And offshoots of the crime will continue to grow even with Price in prison.
People in other jurisdictions already have been found in possession of the videos Price posted, Smith said.
“Once something is on the internet, there’s no way to fully delete it, so it spreads,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive. “The hardest part of it was that these kids were so young. In a perfect world, we’d want to hope that they could not know this ever happened, and they could forget about it.”
But victims must be notified of future cases, and they have a right to restitution, Smith said.
“So children all over the world who are victims of internet crimes will get letters for the rest of their lives every time someone is found with that content.”
– Savannah Eadens; seadens@oregonian.com; 503-221-6651; @savannaheadens
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